1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to an information processing apparatus, a document management system and method, and a computer program. More particularly, the invention relates to an information processing apparatus, a document management system and method, and a computer program, which manage documents such as files and books, which are kept in bookshelves within an office, a library or the like.
2. Description of the Related Art
Large numbers of books and document files are kept in bookshelves within, for example, an office or a library. The books and files are utilized by various users, for example, employees of the office or visitors of the library. The books and files, which the users want to utilize, are taken out of the bookshelves, and the taken-out books and files are restored into the bookshelves when the users completes utilizing them. In a section where the large numbers of documents are kept in custody, how efficiently a desired book is searched for is an issue.
A technique for searching for books is disclosed in, for example, JP 2003-182820 A. JP 2003-182820 A discloses that IC cards each of which stores peculiar identification information and includes a transmission portion for transmitting the identification information are attached to individual books, that transmission signals from the IC cards are received by a receiver, that the reception signals of the receiver are analyzed so as to obtain the position information of the respective books, and that the position information are multidimensionally displayed in, for example, an arrangement diagram, whereby the positions of the respective documents can be efficiently grasped.
According to this configuration, in the library by way of example, the user can check the presence or absence of the book desired to borrow and the position of the book in the bookshelf, on the basis of the author or document name of the book. More specifically, a database in which the identification information stored in the IC cards are associated with the book information of authors, document names, etc. is established, and the peculiar identification information corresponding to the IC card is specified on the basis of the author or document name input by the user, whereby the position of the book bearing the IC card can be efficiently checked.
In the above configuration disclosed by JP 2003-182820 A, however, the user needs to input the author name or the document name for the purpose of searching for the specified book or the like. In a case where the user forgets the author name or the document name, there arises a problem that the search is difficult.